Raed Yassin
Directing
Biography
Raed Yassin (born 1979, Beirut) currently lives between Berlin and Beirut. He graduated from the Theatre Department of the Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut in 2003, and in 2015, he was awarded a research fellowship at the Akademie der Künste der Welt in Cologne. An artist, video maker and musician, Yassin's work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and their position within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production. As a musician, he is one of the organizers of the Irtijal Festival for Experimental Music (Beirut), and has released several solo music albums, as well as part of groups such as “A” Trio and PRAED. In 2009, he founded his independent music label Annihaya. He currently lives between Berlin and Beirut. He has exhibited and performed in numerous museums, festivals and venues, including his current first seminal exhibition at the Beirut Art Center (2024); Taipei Biennial (2023); Lyon Biennial (2022); Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2020); Sursock Museum, Beirut (2019); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2016); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2014); Kunsthalle Wien (2015); Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London (2014); Gwangju Museum of Art (2014); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2014); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012); New Museum, New York (2012); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2011); and Delfina Foundation, London (residency 2014 & 2010 - 2011), amongst many. Yassin is also a recipient of the AFAC grant for production (2019 & 2010), Sharjah Art Foundation Project Fund (2014), Abraaj Group Art Prize (2012), Fidus Prize (2009), YATF grant for production (2008 & 2012) and the Cultural Resource grant for production (2008).
Known For
After 20 years apart, Samir a former militiaman who was presumed dead, reappears in the life of Omar, his little brother who has become a bodyguard in Beirut. Between drama and comedy, Samir has to come to terms with a country he no longer recognizes.
Heaven Sent
Short version of Charaf's feature debut.
Manuel de survie d'un combattant
Ali comes from a modest family in southern Lebanon. He lives and works in Beirut as an assistant to a sports photographer. Ali is in love with a young woman he spotted at an equestrian competition. Unsure of how to seduce her, he asks his sister for advice. She suggests he write her a poem.
Hizz Ya Wizz
Bookended by 8mm footage of a circling bird of prey, most of the film surveys Seven Hells’ landscape — spring water boils, mud pool bubbles rise and rupture, thick curtains of steam briefly part to reveal hints of buildings, walls and walkways.
International Satan’s Day
Disco tells the story of the artist’s father, a disco-addict and a fashion designer who leaves his family to find work abroad, eventually becoming a film star in the Egyptian horror industry. This quickly spirals into a fiction, however, in which the father becomes Egyptian film star Mahmoud Yassin (who shares the artist’s family name). The interplay of image and text explores a generation’s fascination with celebrity, forging a story about abandonment, voyage, longing, and stardom.
Disco
Beirut, Lebanon. On the waterfront’s construction site, security agent Raed must prevent passing-by walkers from accessing the seaside. Yet as the horizon becomes each day more stifled by the construction, Raed makes peculiar encounters—mere dreams, or symbols of his desires?
If the Sun Drowned Into an Ocean of Clouds
Karaoke begins as a story about childhood rivalries and a mother’s innocent mistake, causing pre-pubescent dreams of becoming a child star to be devastated and crushed – silently and without incident: until one day, when those feelings of resentment suddenly rise back to the surface upon watching a wandering VHS tape, on which the scene of a star-studded concert takes place. Alongside this grainy colorful footage, the details of that dreaded day begin to reveal themselves, while the hips of a belly dancer shakes, or an angelic voice woos an applauding audience. Gradually, the narrative transforms from an adorable episode from infancy, to a deeply personal and tragic portrayal of memory, loss, and the towering figure that is the mother.